


It Would Take a Miracle

by MickyRC



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Princess Bride Fusion, Bad Puns, Canon-Typical Violence, Car Chases, Established Relationship, F/M, Framing Story, Good Omens RomCom Event, Grief/Mourning, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Mistaken Identity, Not Really Character Death, Swordfighting, THAT'S RIGHT NERDS BUCKLE UP, The Dowlings' A+ Parenting (Good Omens), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, a few brief warnings though:, we got it all folks!, will add tags as we go but those should be all the warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23237686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MickyRC/pseuds/MickyRC
Summary: Magic, witches, prophecies, revenge.  Demons, angels.  Chases, escapes, true love.  Miracles!Warlock Dowling hasn’t seen his nanny since he turned eleven.  But suddenly, when he’s stuck in bed with the flu, she shows up out of nowhere and wants to read him a book.  A book about rescues and betrayals and secret plots… and an angel and a demon who bear a striking resemblance to some people he already knows.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Nanny Ashtoreth & Warlock Dowling
Comments: 60
Kudos: 111
Collections: Good Omens Rom Com Event





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am UNREASONABLY excited about this fic, I can't even _tell_ you, I've been working on this since _January_ and it's finally posting time!
> 
> An enormous thank you and shout out to the folks in the Bookshop for brainstorming and cheer leading and helping my maintain my sanity, and especially Stu for being such an incredible beta reader on top of everything else.
> 
> Updates are gonna be on Sundays! Hang on, I hope you enjoy the ride!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick chapter specific warnings: mention of vomit, general minor illness

“Warlock?”

He glanced up, then snapped his eyes right back to his game when he saw it was just his mother. “...yeah?” he answered, distracted. He’d already long since passed this level. It was still worth more of his attention than whatever fancy thermometer or weird herbal tea she was about to throw at him.

He barely suppressed a groan when the bed dipped beside him. He’d been home sick for three days already, and despite the coughing and the fever, the worst part of the ordeal was most definitely his mother’s insistence on coming in to fuss over him every few hours. “Are you feeling any better?” she asked. Warlock resisted the urge to say that he  _ had _ been feeling pretty okay until she decided to burst in and interrupt his peace and quiet, but then she was reaching into his space to check his forehead and he really couldn’t hold back an irritated noise as he squirmed away. She didn’t even know what she was looking for when she did that.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, firmly putting the Switch between his face and his mother.

“Hmm.” She scooched closer, looming over the screen and making him roll his eyes. “How’s your cough? Any better?”

Warlock shrugged and stared very deliberately at his game. “I guess.”

Something about that seemed to satisfy his mother, because she stopped pretending to be checking on him and moved away again. “Good, then,” she said, standing and smoothing her skirt. “There’s someone here to see you.”

Suddenly his game was a lot less compelling. “Oh, god no,  _ Mom,  _ not another doctor,” Warlock pleaded. “It’s the  _ flu, _ we know it’s the flu, can’t I just sit here and  _ have the flu _ for a few days?”

His mother sniffed, but didn’t deign to answer that. His parents had dragged him through who knew how many doctors’ offices in the past few days, needing to be sure he was actually, genuinely ill before they even thought about letting him skip school. Like he wanted to be a week behind on all his notes. Like he wasn’t getting all his work sent to him anyway.

“It’s not a doctor,” his mother said primly. “You have a visitor.”

“A  _ visitor? _ Who?” He didn’t mean to sound as incredulous as he did, but really, who was gonna come see him in this state?

His mother stood and straightened her skirt the exact same way she did before walking to a microphone to give a speech. “Nanny Ashtoreth came to see you,” she announced.

It took a moment to sink in.  _ “What?!?” _ Nanny— _ Nanny Ashtoreth had come to see him? _ When did she—but why—

“She heard you were sick, and wanted to visit. Isn’t that nice?” Her expression made it very clear that it  _ was _ nice, whatever he might think on the matter. “I told her I’d check on you first, so I’ll just send her up now, okay?”

“Uh,” Warlock managed. “Sure?”

His mother had already left the room.

Nanny Ashtoreth. Warlock sank down into his pillows and stared at the ceiling. Nanny goddamn Ashtoreth. It’d been, what, five years since she left? It was right after his eleventh birthday, so, yeah, that’d be right. That had been the weirdest party he ever had. Somebody started throwing cake halfway through the juggling act, and it had all pretty much gone to shit from there. Then barely an hour later, hey, ya know what, the woman who’s raised you since you can remember got a new gig somewhere else, say goodbye now Warlock! And a wave and a kiss on the cheek later she was gone without a trace. Then it was all prep schools and tutors and expectations and just enough free time to wonder if Nanny Ashtoreth had maybe been just a figment of his imagination the whole time. And now, five years later, she was just suddenly back to visit?

Well. To be fair. Given she was the strangest woman he’d ever met, this wasn’t exactly out of character.

Just as he was settling into the fact that his  _ nanny _ was back, the door creaked open. And that was like a long forgotten smell, or the opening chord of a favorite song, sending him immediately back to his childhood on the drop of a hat. His bedroom door only ever creaked like that when Nanny opened it.

He looked up, Switch forgotten on the duvet. And there she was. A practically perfect silhouette in the doorway, with her carefully pinned curls and her polished snakeskin boots and those eternal, everpresent glasses settled just low enough on her nose for her to peer over them, and make Warlock feel like a child again with that little smile that was always just for him.

“Hello, dear,” she said, with that precise subtle lilt coloring her tone. “May I come in?”

* * *

When Warlock was five, he caught a nasty bug from one of the other kids at school and was stuck in bed for three days straight. His mother took him to the doctor, got a note saying yes, he was actually sick, and no, he should not be in school, and then swung by the house just long enough to drop him off on her way to a meeting.

It had been Nanny Ashtoreth who fussed over him then, who made him tea and brought him toys and asked if he was feeling any better. Nanny Ash who sang to him when his head hurt too much to sleep. Who sat next to his bed and checked his temperature — always,  _ always _ with just a hand on his forehead. She never needed a thermometer.

Warlock almost wished she did. If he had a thermometer in his mouth now, he wouldn’t have to think about what to say to the woman who’d been more of a mother to him than anyone until she left out of the blue.

“So, the flu is it, dear?” She had settled into the worn down armchair Warlock was fairly certain they’d gotten rid of when he was twelve. But it was so natural for her to be sitting there that somehow that didn’t seem to matter. “Your mother tells me you’ve had quite a fever.”

Warlock swallowed and nodded. He had pressed himself into his pillows so far it seemed like they might swallow him up. “Poor thing,” Nanny tsked. She pressed at his duvet for a moment, smoothing it out and rumpling it back up in a motion that was almost… nervous. Like she wasn’t quite sure what to do.

It was incredibly unnerving.

The tension in the room built until it hit that point where Warlock hardly wanted to breathe for fear of the silence all crashing down around him. He kept almost looking away, almost saying something, almost getting up and running right out of the house, but every time he found he  _ couldn’t. _ His brain said no. Said all he could do was lie there and think about breaking the silence without ever being able to push over and do it.

Finally, when he couldn’t stand it anymore for the fifth time, when he really thought the pressure in his chest was going to send him into another coughing fit he wouldn’t be able to stop, Nanny spoke up. “Do you mind if I check your temperature, dove?” she asked, disconcertingly soft and hesitant.

Warlock was so relieved the air pressure in the room had stopped climbing he didn’t really think about it before he nodded. If he had, he might’ve said no; might’ve thought to show her he was angry and hurt, might’ve told her to leave flat out.

Might’ve.

But he nodded, and when Nanny gave him a small smile he couldn’t help returning it. She leaned forward again, and Warlock felt himself relax further into his pillows when her hand settled over his forehead. It was wonderfully cool against his fevery skin, and it almost felt like his headache loosened up a little under her palm.

“Oh, dear,” she sighed, her hand ghosting over his cheek before she sat back again. “No wonder you’re not feeling well.”

Warlock shuffled around a little under the blankets. “It’s not so bad,” he mumbled. “Just a little headachey.”

“Still,” Nanny said softly. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, Warlock.”

Warlock’s head jerked up. He couldn’t see her eyes through the glasses, but he thought… was it something in her posture? Or was it just the way she had said it, that made it seem like she was sorry for more than Warlock being sick? He stared at her for a moment, and she stared back, and he realized that behind the discomfort and the confusion, a part of him was really just so goddamn happy to see her. He’d thought he never would again, and here she was, just the same as he remembered, just as prim and direct and caring as she’d always been with him.

It was a childhood wish come true, and if he hadn’t been looking right at her he wouldn’t have believed it at all.

Smiling at him, Nanny reached out and placed her hand on the duvet again, but this time she just gave it a comforting squeeze, like she might have if it had been his hand or his shoulder. Gentle, reassuring. Then she leaned down and opened the carpetbag on the floor next to her.

“I have something for you,” she said, pulling out a small package wrapped in plaid paper. “A present.”

Warlock felt his heart drop and shatter like lead through the glass of his mattress. Of course. That was how this worked, always; disappointment, a little bit of hurt, awkward non-apologies and then a gift to make it all better. To win back his love with the same effort and dependability as a carnival game. Pay the man, throw the ball, barely miss the plate and pay the man again. He’d been playing this game with his parents since he was old enough to break promises to.

And now Nanny was playing it, too.

The package was heavy on his lap. The paper was crinkled at one corner, like it had been rumpled on a first wrapping attempt. Not Nanny, then. She hadn’t even been the one to wrap it. Maybe hadn’t even picked it, just sent somebody out to find a suitable present for the kid she’d raised to eleven.

Warlock felt like he might throw up.

But when he picked up the present, either to fling it across the room screaming or hand it back with a cold “no thank you” and go off to vomit in peace, he suddenly couldn’t bear to let it go. He hated it, hated that little tartan covered box with everything he had, but… but it was from Nanny. And however much he hated it, at least this time when she left, he’d have something from her. Something more than a forgotten tube of pink lipstick and a melody stuck in his head. That was all he’d had last time.

Look. He never said he was being logical. His brain did what it wanted, and he just had to work with it.

So he swallowed down the sick, and slid a finger under the tape to pull the wrapping paper apart. He didn’t look up the whole time, scared if he did the self-satisfied smile Nanny must be wearing would well and truly break his defences down and leave him to be run right through by whatever poorly thought out present she had brought him.

Except, when he finally tugged the paper away from the gift, he couldn’t help staring. “A book?” He was too thrown off to hide his confusion as he looked at her in disbelief. “You don’t do books.”

If Nanny had been any other woman, Warlock might have said she sputtered at that. “What, I—ngk, what do you mean, I don’t  _ ‘do books?’” _

“Just—I don’t mean…” Warlock scrambled, wracking his memory. “...wait.” He went through it again, looked for some little moment he might have forgotten, and came up empty. “I… no. I don’t think… I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with a book before.”

Nanny’s eyebrows scrunched up behind her glasses. “No way. There’s no way, I definitely read to you when you were little.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. It was always Brother Fran—”

Warlock froze. He shouldn’t have said that. It sat between them for a moment too long before he could get his feet under him again and change the subject. They didn’t talk about Brother Francis. “But, um, thank you. For the book. I’m excited to read it.” He reached over to set the book on his nightstand, but Nanny put her hand on his before he could move back.

“Would you mind,” she said softly, not quite looking him in the eye. “If we read it now?”

Warlock found himself staring at her again. “Oh,” he managed. “Um. It’s just—I mean I’ve got kind of a headache, so… I dunno, reading’s not, uh. Not good. Makes it worse.”

“Oh, no, dear,” Nanny said. “I meant… if you wouldn’t mind, if maybe I could read it to you.”

“...oh.” Warlock blamed the squeak in his voice on his cough.

Nanny’s hand had moved to run her thumb over the book’s faded leather cover. “Only, it’s a… a rather special book. I’d like to read it to you, if you’ll let me.”

Warlock just looked at her, mouth hanging open a little (he couldn’t breathe through his nose properly, that was all), and waited for the other shoe to drop. For her to realize she had somewhere better to be than reading to a sixteen year old with the flu. When it didn’t, when she didn’t say anything and just kept waiting for his answer, he realized the next move would have to be his.

“What, uh. What’s it about?” he asked. Not really a yes, not really a no.

Nanny’s lips twitched like she was trying not to grin. “It’s a story,” she answered, picking up the book and settling it on her lap.

“Okay,” Warlock countered, “but what kind of story? Is this a history book, or is there like magic and that kinda stuff?”

Nanny’s eyes lit up then, like she’d just found the start of some brilliant joke. “Are you kidding? Magic, witches, prophecies...” She leaned in dramatically. “Revenge. Demons, angels. Chases, escapes, true love. Miracles!”

Warlock tried to keep the automatic rush of anticipation off of his face. Nanny may not have read to him before, but she had told him stories. She was very good at doing the voices. And he did love a good fantasy, even if he kept those books at home to avoid some of the inevitable teasing about his name. “...it doesn’t sound too bad,” he said, pulling himself up to sit more upright. What else was he going to do with his day? “I dunno how long I can stay awake, but we can start it, I guess.”

Nanny smiled at him. “Thank you, dear.” She resettled in her armchair, quietly cleared her throat, and opened the book. “‘The Saint of Hell,’ by A.Z. Fell. Chapter One.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter specific warning for grief!

_ Once upon a time, there was a garden. And in that garden, there was a demon, and there was an angel, hereditary enemies pitched against each other from the very Beginning. _

Nanny leaned forward over the book in her lap. “Isn’t that a beautiful opening?” she asked.

“...yeah.” Warlock squirmed under his blankets. “It’s, uh. Really good.” To his relief, Nanny nodded happily and lifted the book again.

_ After a while, the garden fell, and time and the Earth started moving in earnest, and the demon went up the wall to watch as the first humans went out into the world. _

* * *

“Be funny if we both got it wrong, eh?” Crawly said, tilting his head as he watched Adam and Eve close in on the horizon. “If I did the good thing and you did the bad one.” He chuckled, and his grin was… well, it was a lot, for a world that had only had a sun to light it for a few days. 

Aziraphale couldn’t look away from it. And those wings, those beautiful satin black wings, he’d never seen any like them before. If this was a demon, if this was the  _ lowest _ of Her creations… heavens, what beauty must be out there waiting for him.

He was so distracted by the wonder of his lovely red curls it took him a moment to notice Crawly was waiting for a response. “Right?” the demon prompted.

Aziraphale suddenly realized he had no idea what the question was. “...yes,” he said quietly. “As you wish, I suppose.”

* * *

_ There was nothing the demon liked more than to bother the angel, wherever in the world he was working, however long it had been since they’d seen each other. _

* * *

“You can’t judge the Almighty, Crawly!” Aziraphale hissed. Crawly barely avoided rolling his eyes.  _ Angels _ . “God’s plans are—”

_ “Please _ don’t say ineffable,” Crawly interrupted. It had been too much of a day to take that level of naivety, even from an angel he was growing to expect it from.

Aziraphale faltered. He really had no right looking that cute when he was unsure of himself. That little shoulder wiggle was enough to make Crawly come back and bother him again and again. “...as you wish,” he finally said, and turned back to the Ark.

* * *

_ And, somehow, against everything he had ever been told, the demon came to learn that there was more to the angel than he had first expected. _

* * *

“Oh!” Aziraphale cried, putting his cup down and doing that blasted wiggly thing in Crowley’s direction. “Oh, well let me tempt you to—oh.” He stopped, and Crowley looked up in time to see the corner of his lips twitch. “No that’s, that’s your job, isn’t it?”

Crowley tilted his head as he leaned against the bar. This was new. This was intriguing. And he had never been one to turn down something promising to go in such an interesting direction. “Dunno,” he drawled, twirling his cup against the counter. “Might let you  _ tempt _ me anyway, angel.”

“Oh! Dear, well. As you wish.” Heaven, that smile. Crowley had seen it a few times since Eden, but it always, without fail, made his heart jump out of his chest.  _ He _ did that.  _ He _ made Aziraphale’s face light up like that.

It made him think. Demons couldn’t do good. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. But how could causing something so beautiful as Aziraphale’s smile possibly be evil?

* * *

_ Even as they got closer to each other, though, they always kept a safe distance, a plausible deniability, alibis and excuses and explanations in their back pockets. _

* * *

“If Hell finds out, they won’t just be angry,” Aziraphale said, halfway to pleading and knowing it wouldn’t stop anything. He couldn’t say no if Crowley asked. All he could do was remind them both of the risks. “Crowley, they’ll  _ destroy _ you.”

Crowley just shook his head, his ridiculous beard making him look all the more dismissive. “Nobody ever has to  _ know. _ Toss you for Edinburgh.”

And there it was. Aziraphale sighed and stared down at his feet. “As you wish. Heads.” At least if he was the one to go, he could take any blame for the temptation, and keep Crowley away from being caught doing a blessing. At least if he gave in, they’d see each other again in a few days. At least if he kept going on as they had, he’d never have to explain the soaring in his chest whenever Crowley came into the room, or the drop in his gut whenever he left. At least he wouldn’t have to tell him how he’d felt since Eden.

* * *

_ Because when it came to the other side, Heaven and Hell played for keeps. _

* * *

“I have lots of other people to _ fraternize  _ with, angel.”

He took a step back, and another one, tearing himself away before this could get  _ worse. _ “Oh… as you wish!” Aziraphale cried, and he turned, finally, storming away from that foolish,  _ idiotic _ demon he had never been able to say no to before he caved and lost everything.

He didn’t move quite fast enough. He still heard, from over his shoulder, when Crowley started muttering at the ducks in his most mocking tone.  _ “As you wish. _ Angels,” he spat, and Aziraphale barely kept himself from running.

* * *

_ Nearly six thousand years they kept it up, dancing around each other, circling, always looking over their shoulders before looking at each other. _

* * *

“Lift home?”

“...as you wish.”

* * *

_ The angel was always saying that to him. “As you wish.” Whenever the demon asked for something, whenever he made a joke or a comment the angel didn’t have a response to: “as you wish.” _

* * *

He sat there for a moment too long, unable to move, staring at the thermos cradled in his hands.  _ What? _ He had—Aziraphale had—

_ Aziraphale _ .

“Wait!” The thermos toppled to the passenger seat as Crowley shoved out of the car. “Wait,  _ Aziraphale! _ ”

A few yards down the pavement, under a flickering sign for a girlie show, he stopped. The unsteady light lit up his profile like a camera flash, and Crowley realized suddenly—remembered, really—how blessed  _ dangerous _ this was. For both of them. One mistimed rendezvous, one meeting in the wrong place, and they were done for.

“Wait,” he called anyway. And Aziraphale waited.

He didn’t turn to see him, but he didn’t turn away, either, when Crowley came around to face him. Didn’t pull back when Crowley put a hand on his arm.

“Why?” Crowley squeezed Aziraphale’s forearm, willing him to look up and meet his eyes. “Why are you giving this to me?”

Aziraphale was wearing a little smile, an attempt at a playful smirk that fell flat somewhere between worried and distracted. “You did ask for it, my dear,” he said, and his voice was just as conflicted as his eyes.

Crowley didn’t let him look away. “Yeah,” he pushed on, “a  _ century _ ago. Why now, angel?”

“Well we weren’t exactly speaking for most of that—”

“ _ Aziraphale. _ ” He kept his voice low—or he tried, but the pounding in his ears made it hard to tell. Aziraphale met his eyes again, and his cheerful mask dropped completely. He was scared, Crowley realized, with a jolt through his chest. Not just scared of Heaven and Hell and what they would do if they found out he had given holy water to a demon. He was scared of Crowley knowing  _ why. _ “Angel,  _ please. _ Tell me.”

Another moment, another breath, another chance for everything between them to get pushed down under fear and rules and uncomfortable laughter.

But instead of chuckling and hiding himself away again, Aziraphale sighed, and kept looking scared. And he looked away over his shoulder, but he brought a hand up to cover Crowley’s on his arm. “...as you wish.”

* * *

_ That was the day the demon realized that when the angel said “as you wish,” he was really saying, “I love you.” And even though he had known for centuries that he was hopelessly in love with the angel, to learn that his love was returned changed everything. Suddenly, the threat of being found out by Heaven or Hell seemed much farther away. How could it matter, if he knew he would have his beloved angel at his side to face the danger? How could anything else possibly be important, when the next years and decades and centuries stretching ahead would see them together, and happy, and in love with each other? How could they ever— _

“Wait wait wait wait wait.” Warlock sat up, squinting at Nanny as he shifted closer to her. “What is this?”

“Uh…” Nanny looked between him and the book like she was missing something. “A story?”

Warlock pointed to the stack of unread pages. “Yeah, but it’s the  _ beginning _ of the story.”

“...yeah?”

“So they can’t be together at the  _ beginning _ of the story!” Warlock insisted. “Where’s the rest of the plot gonna come from?”

“They weren’t!” Nanny said. “It took  _ six thousand years _ for—er— _ them,  _ for them to get together, were you even listening to that whole opening? I put a lot of work into that.”

Warlock still wasn’t convinced. “The story’s gotta be more than two pages long! What the hell’s gonna happen in the rest of it?”

“Other things!”

“There’s gotta be plot!”

“There is plot!”

“What about tension?”

“There’s plenty of tension!”

“You can’t tell me the end of the story at the beginning, that’s just shoddy writing.”

“Oi!” Nanny smacked the book down on the side of Warlock’s bed. “Would you let me finish reading before you get all judgey?”

Warlock stared her down for a moment, not ready to give up his argument. He wasn’t about to sit there and listen to 200 pages of romantic fluff with no plot.

But, then again, his little outburst had tired him out. He hadn’t done much besides sleep and watch movies since he’d gotten sick; he still wasn’t ready for much more. “Fine,” he sighed, flopping back into his pillows.

“Thank you,” Nanny replied primly. She turned back to the book.

_ From that moment on, the angel and the demon stayed by each others’ sides, trying to make up for the millennia they had kept themselves apart. For fifty years, they went through the world as a team, working blessings and temptations as their respective head offices required, but always coming back to each other at the end of the day. _

“I don’t _ believe _ this.”

“Hush.”

_ One dark night, the demon was called out for a special job, and when he finally came home, the angel could see he was shaken up. He had been asked to deliver a child to Earth, to place him in a home with human parents to be raised. The child was the anti-Christ, the one destined to destroy the world and everything upon it. Armageddon, the End Times, were on the way. _

“See?” Nanny glared at him over her glasses. “Plot. Tension. We got it all here.”

“Wait,” Warlock said, half sitting up again. “Did you say—” But Nanny hurried on before he could finish.

_ But they worked out a plan. The child was still impressionable, could still be led to a different path than the one he’d been born for. And who better to teach him that the world did not exist in absolutes of good and evil than an angel and a demon in love with each other? _

_ They spent the next seven years doing just that, helping to raise the child in a way they hoped would prevent the world from going up in fire and smoke when the time came. And then, a message came from Heaven. _

_ It wasn’t the first time the angel had been sent on a blessing far away from their home, but it never got easier for the demon to say goodbye. And especially now, when Heaven and Hell were paying closer attention than ever in the lead up to Armageddon, he couldn’t stop himself from worrying. _

* * *

“What if something happens to you?” Crowley whispered into his husband’s shoulder, clinging to his coat and squeezing his eyes shut to keep the tears from spilling over. “What if you get hurt and I can’t help you? Angel, what am I supposed to do if—”

“Shh,” Aziraphale murmured, running a hand in a gentle loop against Crowley’s back. “Shh, my darling. Everything will be fine. It’s just a little blessing, I’ll be perfectly safe. And you’re letting me take the Bentley, dearest, you know she won’t let me go astray.”

“Angel…” Crowley pulled himself impossibly closer. He  _ would _ be fine, there was no reason he shouldn’t be. Aziraphale had been a warrior once, he knew how to protect himself. And the Bentley  _ did _ know better than to let him get hurt. But still. “I’m—I’m just  _ scared, _ Aziraphale. I’m so scared you won’t come back.”

“Of course I will,” Aziraphale tutted lightly, pulling back to turn Crowley’s face up and set soft hands on his cheeks, to wipe away the tears with his thumbs. “Dearest thing, I will always come back to you.”

Crowley searched his face, desperately memorizing it like he didn’t know every line and crease better than his own name. “How can you be sure?” he asked, his voice gone watery and weak.

Aziraphale’s brave smile dropped into something softer. He pulled Crowley closer to rest their foreheads together, closing his eyes and letting Crowley feel the full force of his love.

It was warm, and snug, and fitted just for Crowley, worn into shape by millennia of affection and care, and the demon sunk into it, wrapping his arms around his husband’s neck and relaxing against him, breathing the same air, existing in the same space.

“This is true love,” Aziraphale said softly. “This, my dear, what we have. Do you think this happens every day?”

A laugh burst out of Crowley’s chest, harsh and watery. No. This was once in a lifetime. He’d lived enough to know.

“You see, darling? I believe in this. I believe in this enough to know that we will always come back to each other, no matter what.” He stroked a hand through Crowley’s curls, left loose here at home in the bookshop, no need for his Nanny disguise while he saw his husband off. “I will  _ always _ come for you, my dearest Crowley. Every time. I swear.”

Crowley opened his eyes. Aziraphale was right there, smiling right at him, and he couldn’t believe he was about to let this most beautiful creature go away from him. But he could see, in those sparkling blue eyes, a steady faith, crushing in its intensity and all just for him. All just for the love they had, that he trusted so blessed much.

One last hug, another kiss, and a dozen more promises to be safe, and say hello to Warlock for me, and come home soon and  _ please _ be safe, and Aziraphale picked up his battered leather suitcase and walked out of the bookshop, waving cheerfully back at Crowley as the bell over the door jingled and he stepped out onto the bustling street and climbed into the waiting car.

Crowley didn’t move for a while, staring after him, at the place where Aziraphale had pulled away from the curb and headed off on his own. He hugged himself, pulling bony arms around his chest and already wishing they were softer and warmer and belonged to his angel.

But there was work to be done. Just five years until the apocalypse, and although Warlock was turning out to be a wonderful average of good and bad, there was still planning, and paperwork for Hell, and a temptation quota that didn’t let up just because Crowley’s secret angelic husband was out of town and he was moping about it. So with a last look out the window, Crowley turned into the back office, settled in at his desk, and got to work.

* * *

_ So the angel went out to do his blessing, promising his love that he would be back soon. _

_ But a week went by. And another. And the angel didn’t come home. With no word from him since he left, the demon’s worry only got worse. After the— _

“Nanny?”

Nanny Ashtoreth looked up, and Warlock saw that he had been right. Her eyes were far too bright for normal. “Nanny, are you okay?”

She smiled at him, but he could see the crack underneath. “‘Course, dear.”

“It’s just…” he trailed off. They didn’t talk about Brother Francis. “I dunno.”

“Are you feeling alright?” she asked, shifting forward to check his forehead again. That wash of relief came over him, same as before, and Warlock curled back against his pillows.

“Mhm,” he mumbled.

“Alright if I keep reading?”

“Yeah. I guess the angel going missing counts as plot.”

Nanny laughed, which made Warlock feel that surge of warm comfort all over again. He snuggled into his blankets as Nanny continued to read.

_ With no word from him since he left, the demon’s worry only got worse. After the third week, the demon grew frantic, and started searching for answers, for where his angel might have gone and why he hadn’t returned. _

_ Finally, he found someone, a human who kept tabs on supernatural phenomena and occult happenings. And he learned that there had been an incident the very week his angel had disappeared. _

_ Despite the name, demon hunters catch celestial beings about as often as they do demonic ones—which is to say, extremely rarely, but usually to grave effect. The week the angel went missing, a band of such hunters had been heard bragging about capturing something ‘special.’ _

_ A day later, the house they were working in had burnt to the ground. There were no survivors. The only things left were a pile of charred black salt, and a feather, which the human had found and stored in a cardboard package filled with newspaper. _

* * *

“Where did you get this.”

“Building the hunters were using. Only thing left worth salvaging. I can let ye have it for, ooh… say, fifteen pounds? Plus the usual fee for the information.”

The feather was too white and too large to belong to any bird. Crowley held it in his hands and watched his fingers start to shake around it as his head sat empty and cold.

It smelled of him. Of cocoa and leather and ink and angel and  _ him. _

It smelled of smoke. It smelled of Hellfire.

It smelled of a lost promise.

* * *

_ The demon returned home alone. In shock, in pain, in desperation, he fell into their bed and slept for days, dreaming all the time that his angel was there beside him. _

_ The moment he woke was the only time in fifty years he considered opening the safe that held the precious holy water. _

_ He went back to work after that time asleep, but only because he had grown to care for the child they had been guiding. He poured everything he had into that little boy, all the love in him that suddenly had nowhere to go. It wasn’t long before he noticed, though, that even without the angelic influence of his husband to counteract his own inherent evil and the child’s destined demonic power, the little boy hardly changed at all. There was no spike of mischief, no surge of badness to be found. No sign at all that this was the anti-Christ. _

_ The demon didn’t do anything about it. He should have gone looking, tried to find out if this was really the right boy. He should have found the real one, and reworked the plan to make up for all the years they’d been in the wrong place. _

_ He didn’t. He no longer cared if the world went up in smoke and flame when the time came. _

_ His angel would never come back to him. How could anything else matter? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear on my life there's a happy ending. I _promise._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hello! Please don't skip the notes today! I got things to tell you!**
> 
> So! This is, by far, the heaviest chapter this fic will have. We pick back up and start to get the com in romcom at the end, but please be aware this one's a bit dark; literally all of the warning tags up so far are for this chapter. Just keep that in mind, and as always if you have any questions feel free to shoot me a message on tumblr [over here.](https://one-with-the-floor.tumblr.com/)
> 
> But! It's not all doom and gloom! I've been so happy reading all your comments, they really do make my day every time. I'm sorry I haven't been responding, I've got a backlog I'm working up to going through, but I read every one and am so very thankful for them. I appreciate all of you!!!

_ Five years later, the child destined to end the world turned eleven. _

_ The demon wasn’t there for it. _

_ Instead, he was at a different birthday party, for a different child, watching and waiting for the final sign that this was not the anti-Christ. It wouldn’t change anything either way. He’d prefer they’d been wrong, actually; he’d rather this child he cared for not have to go through the horrors of starting armageddon. _

_ Three o’clock. That was when the surest sign would arrive, the Hellhound, meant to stand at the side of the Destroyer of Worlds and protect them as they brought about the End Times. Unlike demons and angels and satanic nuns who may have fumbled and lost track of the correct child, the Hellhound would not be fooled. It would go where its intended master was, whether that was who everyone else thought it should be or not. At three o’clock, the demon would have his answer, and the end of the world would begin. _

_ And three o’clock came and went with no hound in sight. _

* * *

Crowley almost regretted saying no to helping plan the party. A juggler, really? Who decided to hire a juggler? The kids were ten and eleven, for Hell’s sake. They didn’t want to sit and watch a poor sod with drama school debts throw things around.  _ They _ wanted to be the ones throwing things around.

A barely conscious demonic miracle made sure nothing got on his dress when the cake arrived and the party dissolved into just that.

He scanned the treeline, knee bouncing under his skirt. A minute to go. He didn’t know what he would do if a Hellhound actually did show up. Run? Slink off down to Hell and find a corner to hide in until the worst of it was over?

Well. It wasn’t like he had a plan if the dog  _ didn’t _ show up, either.

Thirty seconds. He looked over at the mass of kids in the center of the party tent, laughing and yelling and chucking cake at each other. Having the time of their lives. And there Warlock was, getting chased around the outskirts of the group. His mother was going to have a fit about the state of his shirt. Crowley just smiled faintly at the smudge of blue icing dotting his nose.

He checked his watch. Two minutes past three, and not a hound in sight. That was that, then. He pushed to his feet and started working his way around the tent to the exit. It was suddenly much too loud in there.

But when he got out it was still too loud, and too bright, and his head felt like it was just a little too full and too light all at the same time. He wanted to go home, he decided. Just—just get out of here and hide away in his flat, where it was dark and quiet and empty and he didn’t have to think about what was about to happen.

He headed across the lawn, a quick snap guaranteeing that there would be a taxi waiting for him when he reached the front gate. Fuck it if Hell expected him to hang around. He hadn’t been on their side for decades, now. It was just a matter of convenience, really, a minimization strategy for his problems to hit their quotas and send in their paperwork. He didn’t give a shit about their plans past how exactly they were going to screw him over this time. He didn’t so much as care if—

“Nanny?” Crowley halted in his tracks, and he turned over his shoulder to see Warlock squinting out into the sunny yard at him. “Are you leaving?” the boy asked.

“I am, dear,” Crowley replied.

“You’re not gonna stay for cake?”

Crowley felt his lips twitch. “I think most of the cake has ended up on your shirt, darling.”

Warlock looked down at his front. “Oh. Yeah.” Then he shrugged and moved to duck back into the tent.

Crowley chuckled to himself, then turned back towards the house. He felt a little better. He still just wanted to go home.

“Wait! Nanny!” He turned around just in time to catch Warlock as he threw his arms around his waist and buried his face in Crowley’s shirt.

He hugged Warlock back carefully. But in only a moment he found himself squeezing him tighter, nearly clinging to the boy’s thin shoulders. It wasn’t  _ fair. _ This wasn’t  _ fucking _ fair, he’d lost so much, he’d lost  _ everything _ and now they were going to take more? How much longer would this go on? How many times could a person find something to pour themselves into only to have it snatched right out of their arms again? There had to be a breaking point. There had to be some number of losses that a body just couldn’t take, where his corporation would simply give out and send his Being hurtling back to Hell.

He let go when Warlock pulled away. “See you tomorrow, Nanny!” he said cheerfully, and ran back to the tent, where he was immediately pelted with icing and cake. Crowley watched him go. He couldn’t have said if the hug had felt like a final blessing or a fatal curse.

He turned away again.

The Dowlings’ yard had been too loud, but the taxi was much too quiet. Of all the curses the Almighty had wrought to Crowley’s being when he Fell, the one he hated most was his imagination. If he could just sit in the back of a cab and  _ just sit, _ he’d be fine. It was the thinking that got to you, he thought. The thinking about the future and the past and what the future might have looked like  _ without _ the past, and how the present could have been different with just the slightest shift, and what color the sky might have been, and why traffic moved like it did and how the weight of a hand on his arm would change it all and whether asphalt burned or melted under Hellfire and what time sounded like when—

“Turn on the radio,” Crowley told the driver. If his brain had music to process, it would have to put something else on pause. Maybe he’d get lucky and it would be the part of him that liked to think.

* * *

_ But as the demon headed back to his flat to sleep away the last hours of the Earth, a message came through from Hell. And that changed everything. _

* * *

“Yes, Lord Beelzebub.” Crowley sat stock still in the back of the cab, leaning on the door in a feeble show of nonchalance. “I’ll be there.”

“Don’t be late,” the Prince of Hell’s voice crackled through the radio. “It would be very… ungrateful of you, missing your own promotion, underzzztand that?”

“Yes, Lord Beelzebub.” Crowley took the hint. “Thank you.”

He could practically hear Beelzebub squinting at him. “You don’t sound sufficiently exzzzited by this.”

“Uh… er, well,” Crowley winced. “... just, ah. Processing. Big news, you know how it is.”

“Hmmm.” He held his breath. “Very well. Just finish up whatever it is you do up there and get down here on time.”

“Yes, Lord Beelzebub.” The radio sneered a final time and then sputtered back into top forty pop. Crowley slumped back in his seat, unbothered by the hair pins pushing into his scalp. “Fucking Heaven. Can’t even catch a rest  _ now,  _ of all times.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised, really. This was exactly the sort of thing Hell would pull. Of course they wanted to show off, parade around with the demon who made sure the apocalypse went the way it was supposed to.

Almighty, they had no idea how true that was.

“Fuck it,” he muttered into the chill glass of the window. They could parade him around all they wanted. Cover him up with commendations and awards and  _ promotions _ until the sky crashed down and took them all with it. He hadn’t planned to be in Hell when the War started, but if that was what they wanted, it was easier not to fight it. See how long it took before they realized their shiny new celebrity commander cared even less about their War than he did about Earth.

It wasn’t going to be pretty. Then again, nothing much was, when it came to Hell.

* * *

_ The demon was instructed to report to Main Office the next day, the last day, at one o’clock sharp. That gave him most of a day to wrap up his life on Earth. _

_ But the demon didn’t have much of a life on Earth anymore. He’d already said his goodbyes to the child who was not the anti-Christ, and besides him, the only things he spent any time with were the houseplants he kept in his flat. They were beautiful plants, lush and green and full, and the demon hated them with everything he had. _

* * *

“Is that a spot?” Crowley’s tongue slunk between his front teeth, tasting the balanced, absolutely perfect humidity of the room and letting it make him even angrier.  _ “Is it?” _ The leaf trembled against his palm. He sneered at it harder.

“Right,” he said, his heart starting to pound and his eyes veering sharply toward full serpent. “Right, you know what I’ve told you about leaf spots. You know they’re a failing, you know you’re supposed to do  _ better.” _ Damp dirt ground under his nails as he hooked the plastic pot up close to his face. “You knew. And you fucked it up anyway. Let it happen all the same.”

The room was filled with shivery rustling sounds, and Crowley breathed it in deeply. In this room, this one little space, he was in control. He could make sure they all got what they deserved.

He swung around, holding the damaged little plant out to make sure all the others saw. “You know what this means,” he snarled. The plant quaked away as much as it could when Crowley pulled it in close again.

“That kind of failure comes with punishment,  _ my dear,” _ he sneered, and plucked idly at the broken leaf, at the patch that had gone brown and dry. “Can’t let you get away with something like this. You let your poor leaf get a spot, when you should have been  _ protecting _ it.” The little plant trembled and shook, and Crowley just shook his head and held it up again for all to see. “Everyone!” he called. “Say goodbye to your friend. Couldn’t do even this simple little thing right.” He sauntered towards the window. Every leaf in the place pulled as far away from him as they could get as he passed, but Crowley ignored them all as he put on his little show, dragged his failure all the way through the room for all to see.

And then he reached the window, and snapped the glass away, and the burst of grey August air sapped his swagger away like a magnet. God, he was so tired. The little plant quivered in his grasp and reached out desperate leaves toward the sunlight. The damaged leaf stayed behind.

Crowley’s grip clenched on the plastic pot hard enough to dent it.  _ “This is all your fault,” _ he hissed. And with hardly anything of a sneer on his face, he dropped the plant to crash down on the deserted pavement below.

He stood there for a long moment before anything like thought occurred to him again. Once it came back it wouldn’t leave, of course, and he’d be stuck in the same loop of imagination and pain for the next—well. For whatever there was left, really.

Alcohol. Alcohol, that would do it, he needed an unbelievable amount of alcohol to cope with this. Then maybe he could nap the rest of his time on Earth away.

There was an impressive assortment of high class whiskey and scotch filling the sleek kitchen cabinets. Crowley went right for the freezer, for the bottles of cheap vodka he kept for when he needed to burn his throat out and forget about it immediately afterwards. He didn’t bother with a glass.

And then, right as he was about to crash down on the sofa and make an attempt to shut his brain up for a while, a gentle chiming sound rang through the flat. It took a second ring for him to recognize it as his doorbell, and a third for him to actually move towards the door. The only reason his doorbell ever rang was for door-to-door bible thumpers, which were never as funny as they had seemed when he invented them, or a pizza delivery when he was particularly desperate for comfort.

But the bell kept ringing, like whoever was there knew for sure he was in and wasn’t going to leave until he showed. He considered just shutting the bell up with a snap or popping up behind the caller to give them a good scare, but for the first time in a while, his curiosity poked its head above ground. And really, what did it matter? Day and a night left, he could deal with whatever inconvenience this might cause him for a day and a night. Maybe it’d be a nice last laugh before the smoke rolled in.

Crowley fumbled his way through to the foyer to grab his glasses off the table and shove them on his nose before he reached for the door knob, freezing cold vodka bottle still hanging from one hand. He took a moment to settle his expression somewhere nicely between done-with-your-shit and too-cool-to-care, and pulled open the door.

His hard work was immediately undone. “Sergeant Shadwell?” he said in disbelief.

“Ah! Mister Crowley.” The man in question grinned at him with heavy handed cheer. “You’re looking well!”

“...clean living,” Crowley replied, idly swinging his liquor bottle as he peered out into the hall. Shadwell looked his usual grimy self, but to Crowley’s surprise, there were two people with him: an anxious, unfortunate looking young man, and a woman with thick, dark hair, thick, round glasses, thick, colorful skirts, and a thick, battered book. Crowley squinted at them. In all the years Shadwell had been doing work for Crowley, he’d never seen him with anyone before. “Who are your friends?”

Shadwell’s uneven grin stretched deliberately. “Ah, yes! My associates. This is Witchfinder Private Newton Pulsifer.” He gestured at the uncomfortable young man on his right, who nervously stuck out a hand to shake. Crowley declined in favor of a swig of vodka, staring the poor kid down the whole time. “New recruit, you know! May need to update the budget soon, what with wages and equipment and all.”

“Uh huh,” Crowley drawled. His attention was on the young woman. As a demon, his powers of perception really only extended to sensing when people were Trouble or Strongly Leaning Towards Trouble, but something about this human was… off. A bit more aware than she should be. The woman stared right back at him, smiling like she knew he had secrets and she was just waiting to find them.

“So!” Shadwell continued. “We’ll get to business then, aye? Anyone else in?”

“Nope,” Crowley said, popping the word. “Just me. Oi, you.” He jerked his chin towards the young woman. “Book girl. Who are you?”

The young woman’s smile shifted from expectant curiosity to quiet amusement. “Anathema Device,” she replied smoothly. “Witch.”

“Huh.” Crowley went to take another drink, then stopped. His forehead scrunched in as the word clicked in his brain. “Wait—”

“Hit him.”

A blast of strong herb scented air burst in Crowley’s face just as something heavy slammed into his shoulder. He had just enough time to curse as his liquor bottle smashed on the floor, then his vision went fuzzy and grey, and the ability to think at all left him far behind.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell with me on tumblr [over here!](https://one-with-the-floor.tumblr.com/)


End file.
